Today’s guest post is by Elizabeth J. Agnew:

Six Sustainable Productivity Solutions
by Elizabeth J. Agnew, MS, PE

Invest in the planning
Managers spend a fair amount of time planning out how a project will be completed, by who and when. There are university degrees in this – it matters. You can do this for your day. The return on your time investment will far outweigh the cost. A benefit is that you’re revisiting your goals each time you put them in your schedule, revisiting your intentions, and setting your mind up for success. You maintain that future perspective.

Create a skeleton structure
You probably already have a feel for how you’d like a typical day to go. Create a structure that would repeat either on a daily or weekly cycle.

Separate and allocate productive content and maintenance content
What you do includes project work, or content, and administration. Match when you do each to your natural inclinations and energy levels. You can lump maintenance or administrative content so that, in the end, it too will feel like a project.

You are the ultimate master!
Making a schedule doesn’t bind you to it. You remain in control, and there’s no reason to feel guilty if something comes up and you have to abandon it, or choose to abandon it. It’s simply a statement of intentions, or a roadmap representing ideal at the time of its creation.

Estimate conservatively
When you sit down to plan your day, you’ll be surprised at how much you can theoretically get done. Double the time you think each task will take, and limit yourself to 3 or 4 projects per day. If you’ve looked at the bigger picture, you will see how just a couple of projects per day adds up to larger overall goals.

All you have is now
When you can’t focus, it’s because you are not putting your energy on the task at hand. But the irony is, the task at hand is the only task you have, because the past is merely a memory, and the future just a dream! Keep your energy on what you’re doing right now. That will help you get it done.

Elizabeth J. Agnew, MS, PE
Vision, Goal, Action. Coaching
www.vgacoaching.com
Phone: 650.326.1751

Liz coaches engineers and other technically minded people on how to develop into successful leaders. The coaching process opens the doors of discovering the 9 elements above. Personal foundation, life vision, relationships, and behavior patterns are explored to leverage strengths and create new effective ways of being. She offers complimentary coaching consultations – call or email today to schedule yours.

This resource on Developing Your Website: Tools for Women goes through the following ideas in a series of posts.

1) Introduction
2) Parts of a Website (domain names, hosting, mailing lists)
3) Content Management
4) Free and Open Source solutions
5) Design and user interface
6) Payment processing
7) Networking (online and offline)
8) Generating revenue online: Google Adsense, affiliate programs, members-only content and other ways to make money
9) Reviewing your Data by using Reporting
10) Updating your site with Timely Content

Prior Links:
Parts 1 and 2
Parts 3, 4, and 5
Part 6

Today’s post is focused on Part 7: Networking, Part 8: Generating Revenue Online, Part 9: Reviewing your Data, and Part 10: Updating your site with Timely Content

Part 7: Networking

When you’re first starting out, a large part of your success depends on the circle of associates you are part of: your networking abilities help foster (or hinder) your ability to receive referrals to new customers.

As your business grows and as your website becomes more “mature,” with additional links and more updated content, you’ll want to develop good connections with other professionals who are natural allies to your business. For example, as a real estate agent, you’ll want to have established working relationships with a mortgage broker or loan officer, assessor, handyperson, printer, gift baskets provider, attorney, and coach. Then you all may link to each other, both online and offline!

I highly recommend that you allocate at least 10% of your time towards increasing your circle of associates. Offline, this may take the form of attending networking events like Chamber mixers and BNI meetings, “power-lunching” with others who share your values, attending industry-specific events, conferences, or seminars, or finding a MeetUp group that suits your preferences. Online, this may take the form of answering questions on Linkedin, participating in a discussion board or listserve group, or updating your Facebook or MySpace portfolio.

Important Note
Your circle of associates determines your ability to find customers who “fit” what you are selling. Who are your natural allies? Identify your circle and foster strong connections within that circle.

Questions to Answer:
What sets you apart from others?

How can you help other people within your network?

Who would you like to contact or make friends with? What’s your plan for finding those associates/friends?

Part 8: Generating Revenue Online

If you are setting up an online business only, and you anticipate that your website will be your primary place of business rather than a brick-and-mortar location, you’ll want to sell through multiple channels on your website.

Some items to consider include:

1) Your physical or virtual product or service that you are marketing through your website. For example, if you are a jewelry seller, you may display your finest pieces in your online store. If you are a tradesperson, you will offer a gallery of your handiwork or past work you’ve done for others. If you are selling a product, you offer “buy now” buttons on your website.

2) Adsense: Google Adsense is an easy way to add revenue to your site through small content-specific ads. These are targeted ads that display in a section that you specify on your site, and the ads are served and processed by Google. google.com/adsense.

3) Sponsored reviews: If you offer a review service or some other way to highlight products and services on your site, specify what you accept for the review process.

4) Affiliate programs: There are multiple services where you may become an affiliate and receive a small portion of any sales that are initiated through your link. For example, you may consider reselling products from my website, A Successful Woman, and receiving a 20% commission of the value of any products or services sold.

5) Members-only content: In some cases, you may be able to charge a membership fee for the ability to access “members-only” content on your website. Do you have certain items, products, freebies, downloads, or articles that your visitors would be willing to pay a small fee for? Find a way to organize that information into something that works for your customers.

6) Ongoing specials or coupons: what can you offer? Your brain will help you come up with many different offerings that you may convert into income streams. For example, can you identify three items that you may sell that are helpful or valuable to your customers? Through my web design business, we also sell web hosting, logo design, and print design. I’m sure you can find three additional items that support your customers for your own business or project.

7) I’m offering 99 ways for you to generate online revenue through my blog postings: http://www.asuccessfulwoman.com/success/tags/99-ideas-to-generate-online-revenue/… I hope you’ll subscribe to my blog to keep posted with these. Feel free to contact me and share some ideas that have worked for you, too! info (at) a successful woman (dot) com.

Questions to Answer:
How much do you want your website to gross for you each month? What breakdown will be from physical products, personal services, and/or website advertising?

What types of advertising, if any, are you willing to accept on your website? Ads served from outside parties? Ads served through an ad network? Ads that only you organize or offer?

What constitutes a successful website for you?

Part 9: Reviewing your Data

Hands down, the best service that I’ve found is Google Analytics google.com/analytics, a free way to receive data reports about who is visiting your website. This requires you to sign up with an account, and then install a little “snippet” of code into the footer of your web pages. When a visitor comes to your website, the little “snippet” counts your users and the time they spend on the site, what pages they visit, etc. and creates weekly reports for your review.

You may see a sample Analytics report for the ASuccessfulWoman.com website here:
sample report.

Notice things like the total number of unique visitors, the time spent on the site, and the pages visited.

With this data, you get a good sense of how visitors find you (through the search engines? through links from other websites? through e-mail?) and what types of pages are your most commonly-visited pages.

This data then gives you ways to either update your most commonly-visited pages or provide even more targeted information to make your visitors’ experience smooth and straightforward.

Questions to Answer:
Are you able to update your content in response to your reports?

What pages do your visitors tend to congregate around? Can you make that page content even more engaging?

How can you make your site “stickier” for visitors (for example, by adding related pages)?

Part 10: Updating your site with Timely Content

I’ve found that as my website content loses its “freshness,” the amount of time visitors spend on the site decreases.

To make an immediate impact and to keep your site fresh, you’ll want to add content, content, content.

Some ways to add additional content to your website include*:

• Blog posts
• Photo gallery or visitor photo gallery
• Event calendar or visitor event calendar
• Latest press releases
• Latest newsletter
• Recent projects or upcoming projects
• RFP list
• Job opportunities or volunteer opportunities
• News archive
• White papers
• Published articles
• Member highlights
• Customer highlights
• Story of the month
• Notes from our director
• Seasonal announcement
• Staff profile
• Latest volunteer projects or newest volunteers
• Industry news
• Company announcements
• Recent awards
• Who’s who
• Expert analysis
• Charitable giving report

*These ideas and more are in my book, ‘Fifty-one Ways to Build your Community of Clients Online’, available in e-book format and on Amazon.com.

What I’ve found is that you may make more of an impact when you share your knowledge: what do you know about and what types of ideas may you discuss with authority because of your life experience, your beliefs, or your values?

For example: a chef may talk about nutrition, ingredient sourcing, good local restaurants, ways to combine flavors, and sample recipes. A landscaper may talk about flowering plants, native plants, bush and hedge combinations, garden layout, soil composition, pest control, and ideas for the next spring season. There are so many opportunities for you to share your knowledge, I highly recommend you find something you really want to share and identify a place for it on your website. For me, I use these postings and integrate them into my “resources” section for my business, 10K Webdesign, so I have a multitude of links and how-to articles in one section.

What are you able to share? Find ways to integrate those into your website for maximum success in keeping your site updated with timely content.

Easton, my editor from another business blog network, has recently started to offer his expertise as a blog inspector. (Read his latest post on “Developing Hope” here: http://www.visionaryblogging.com/develop-hope/)

For those of you who are updating a website regularly, are blogging regularly, or know someone who may benefit for this service, he offers solid and practical advice on how to:

• Improve your blog content
• Improve your blog design
• Build your blog community
• Make more money with your blog
• Increase your blog traffic
• Get more feed/newsletter subscribers
• Strengthen your blog brand
• Integrate your blog with your company website
• Make your blog more worthwhile

The Blog Inspection is a one-time fee of $75USD, and within 7 days, you’ll receive:

A 10-minute video screencast where Easton visits your blog and offer suggestions for improvement
A 5-page-plus written assessment in PDF format including a summary of video tips, a suggested blog improvement plan, and a personalized resource list (experts, blogs, websites, articles, books, services, organizations, etc.)
A free 1-hour follow-up phone call to discuss Easton’s blog advice
The option to have Easton publish your Blog Inspection at VisionaryBlogging.com

These are all fantastic ways to monetize your blog or website and to increase your ability to expand your business, organizational, or community reach. I encourage you to connect with Easton through Visionary Blogging or to subscribe to his feed for additional free information, articles, and resources.